Some remarks about the MMORPG Atlantica Online

What’s wrong with Atlantica?

17.06.2012

I still like playing Atlantica Online a lot. There were always problems with the game and huge problems with the company running that game, but all in all it was a satisfying experience. But lately I grew angrier and angrier about it and watched myself groaning about the remaining TBS points – which forced me to play. Or at least I thought they would.

Here are some random thoughts. This article is a rant article and contains a lot of FUD.

1. Technical issues

When Nexon started to operate this game it was a rough ride. The game stabilized somewhat after it. But lately there were a lot of issues disturbing the gaming experience. It started with huge lags every full hour (which have gone away now, except during reset time). Then expeditions got stuck in mines. I tried these expeditions only once seriously and am still avoiding them like the plague because I still hear about reports of that bug. Then the company forced the second password reset. That in itself makes sense but why not announcing it a bit before, so that everybody has a chance to check if their email adress is still correct? And if the company does it, it should do it correctly and actually send out the email containing the new second password. The action cost us one guild member. He did everything right (current email adress and so on) but he simply didn’t get the email.

On the other hand some issues seem to be resolved. Starting with little things like observations for the diary which seem finally to work properly now. I won’t dc in TBS missions anymore on my modest notebook (which has – more than – the recommended configuration to be found on the website, but not that much more). There are no hidden monsters or other problems. Ok, in “Revenge Of The Spirit” my catapult starts sometimes with 0 hitpoints, and sometimes the forest prison effect of African monsters are not displayed properly, but that are quirks I can live with.

2. Support system

Personally I am still miffed about Nexon’s accounting service. I bought 10 Nx via paybycash and got the receipt from the Nexon website (not only from paybycash) like this:

SUCCESS! Thank you. You have added NX 10,000 ($ 10) to your account. Order number [long number]. Click “Review Purchase” to view your purchase history. If you have any questions or comments about your purchase, please contact BillingPP@nexon.net

The only thing was that Nexon did not add 10.000 Nx to my account. The following support ticket issue is so sad that I won’t tell you about it. Suffice to say: they did not solve the problem. Which of course means that I never again will use the Item Mall from Nexon. More than three months have passed now and I still get an automated response from Nexon every week. They did not only rob me of 8 Euros but also spamming my Inbox.

It is not about 8 Euros at the core but about the feeling of unreliability. It gives me the impression of Nexon being not a serious business but more or less a random shot at my money. It undermines trust. There is a reason why Google thinks that mails of Nexon are spam. That darkens the atmosphere in which I am thinking about Atlantica Online more than I would have thought.

3. In-Game issues

Some things are very good now:

The Training Center (and to a certain extent: the new Valley Of Oblivion guild dungeon) are steps in the right direction, as is the new raid dungeon Labyrinthos. Something one can do in groups instead of playing all alone, at least at higher levels. And I look forward to a similarly revamped nation dungeon (Babel).

Due to mines the oriharukon issue is solved. Pegasus gear’s limiting factor are now Pegasus tears but they still are reasonable priced. So this works well now, too.

Some things are not so well:

TBS missions are so easy now that everybody can solo most missions as soon as they reach the minimum level required (as shown frequently on this blog). That is very, very sad. It defeats the second “m” in mmorpg. And what I enjoyed most when I started to play Atlantica was the friendly people with whom I partied. A new player can get to level 120 and beyond without any party (at least if the quest does not force him to, and for these rare occasions he can use any alt). I still remember the glory days when we fought the Troy missions with 3 people and had real problems to succeed. You gain more money now but you lose the sense of achievement. By the way: For the same reason I think it a grievous mistake to make the upgrade quest for level 120 so easy with the Elements Of War patch.

The atlas price has sky-rocketed. For me that means I won’t extend my diary anymore. Instead I play more with my alt Fritz, which replaces the income loss on Claudia. Enhancing your gear with atlas is now a huge loss. Remember, atlas’ foremost function is to plus your gear. But you can buy plussed gear for less from the market than it would cost you to enhance it with atlas, even if every attempt to atlas it would be successful. I saw a +5 pegasus bow for less than 6 b on market today. You need 595 atlas ore to safe enhance a pegasus plain bow when every attempt is successful (and no jump in it). 595 atlas do cost now 595 x 18 M = 10.7 b. Of course I don’t buy atlas anymore – I buy the gear directly. But what possesses anyone to enhance gear with atlas anyway? That is beyond my understanding. Be that as it may, I am glad about it and buy gear directly.

Gear prices are deflating. That seems to be the natural consequence of the good drop rate of nix to evil equipment in the Training Center, the Yggdrasil ND and the new voo. While that is nice in a way, it means also that crafting of equipment is useless now. You will never get back what you invested – even +1 as result is not enough anymore.

There seems a huge loss on server population. There may be about the same number of toons on the server than before. But because of the referral system every player has at least 2 (I know of some with 10 and more) alts so that they can get referral points. Personally I think introducing the referral system, well meant as it was, was a huge mistake. At least as long multi-accounting is allowed.

I play Atlantica Online since 2008. I should now be used to the interface with which I interact with the game. But I am still angry about it. About the inconsistency, the clumsiness, the amateurishness, about being forced to close windows which display messages I would never look at voluntarily, at messages disappearing too fast at the right screen border, at not being able to store conversations as text files (even Dekaron/2 Moons has this function), at the chat window scrolling even when I move my mouse over it because it has serious focus issues, at the acong pictures preventing proper scrolling of new messages in the chat window… ah, it flows – I could continue this for several paragraphs. It irks me because it shows that the programmers don’t know their job. They remind me of my own early programming days where I frickled something together before I learnt to program user interfaces properly. With all the new shiny mmorpgs out there and coming soon, it will be more and more difficult to lure players to Atlantica Online. My son saw it and turned away. “Really, Dad, you bear with that?” And played League Of Legends…

4. Item Mall

Contrary to the belief of many whiners on the forum you don’t need the Item Mall to do well. You don’t need the blessing license: Momotaro helps you with boss fights and TBS, and the rest you should be able to do without. At least Fritz can do that. You don’t need the Warrior Package either, but Fritz does sorely miss teleportation. While shiny mounts and decorations are nice, most people overevaluate them. It only helps your main. What use is a main who still stands while his whole formation or TBS team dropped dead around him? Only in the raid dungeon that is a real factor. And you don’t really need atlas. There are enough people who are crazy enough to still buy it from the item mall, enhance their gear and throw it cheaply on the market, so problem solved.

That said, I get suspicious. Atlantica Online lives from the Item Mall. How can a game survive which actively tries to drive people away from the Item Mall, due to ridiculous high prices, unreliably accounting service, unattractive and/or plain ugly mounts, decos (all the mecha wings before Iris’s – which are the first that are reasonable beautiful) and clothes and completely mispriced items like perimeter licenses (which do exactly the opposite I would want) or boxes with 100 freezing scrolls? Up to now the game survived because it has a great core and is unique. But how long will that carry it with new mmorpgs sprouting all over the ground? This insecurity prevents me from levelling up a Tarkan, for example. I don’t know if the game still exists when my Attila would be at level 141. And if it exists I don’t know if I am still motivated to play it.

A relative of mine had an affair with an old man, when she was young. She confessed after she broke up with him, that in her opinion old men smell like death coming. I get a whiff of it from Atlantica Online now as well.

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Agree with you completely. The only thing, doing TBS not always about gears. You must know what to do, and do it right. If you don’t, you will lose the mission anyways, the hoard of mobs will punish you.. So soloing the missons is always about thinking :)

We lost a member because he was hacked all they did was a password reset and he was still not helped at all after weeks… ages ago when something like that happened they rerolled teh character and the player could go on till they finish investigations – not losing anything if he was right. now with nexon? o no players can take anything a few months wait? fine – in tehir dreams in reality people leave after buta few days and make an even worse reputation to this crap company than it deserves – and thats very very low…

wed onet have any real events at all – we got multiple events at once that needed atlas ore making its price almost double… which made me not want to buy any. and because of the issues you mentioned no i wont pay them. WHEN they fix the game and make it stable – and with a seemingly possible future i might invest into it. now it is so steeply downhill that i deny paying into a sinking ship. also i am pissed that other servers have lower peices than us. why does it cost me more? because of nexon? well then.. f off. i dont pay… also based on point one – ages ago i could expect help if i was hacked so i invested a bit-at worst i had to wait 1-2 days. now i dont invest because if i am hacjked i lost everything for good… with their security i wont risk that…

the sad thing is that they would need only a small effort to fix it but they just dont. all they do is wrenching money out of it before peole start leaving. stupid policy. nexon style thinking -.- i am totally dissatisfied with this company. it was the worst possible thing that could happen to this game …

Excelent post. If it can be of any use, Minotaur is a lot about brain and a lot less about gear. Any player with 60k hp can be on boss, except for the tank who should have like 80k-90k hp… And the gates a 135 with a +4 evil weapon can handle. (for raid 135)
Agree with you on the rest. To me seems they are “milking” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth-share_matrix) the players what they can because they want to finish the game soon.

Concerning Labyrinthos: Yes, I agree, it is mainly about brains. My point is only that decoration and mount does count more in the raid dungeon than elsewhere – because only your main benefits from them, but in the raid dungeon only your main is present. Anywhere else it does not count that much because the mercenaries you have with you won’t profit from mount and decos (and clothes).

Agree with all you said… People says that you don’t need IM… But… With Atlas price increase like this…

Its always nice playing Atlantica. Its best online game i ever played but not the best online gaming moment i ever had. I remember playing Perfect World with my friend. Oh, and everytime we party because we always need ‘supporter’ in that game. I miss a game where a Priest character exist… You cant get it in Atlantica. You can get all merc you want… On Atlantica the differents is only at Main Character (even they don’t have so different skills… Good supports class only CannonM with his debuff i think, you can even get other debuffers from mercs). Real MMORPG is where a swordsman can tank the. Boss monster, a Mage to curse/burn/poison the boss monster, an archer as damage dealer, and a priest to gives buffs and heal the tanker… I’m thingking about Dragon Nest now… This game will come to Indonesia this month… I feel like want to move to DN but… Knowing Dragon Nest is also Nexon’s game… I fear this game will end like Atlantica (oh, and Dragon Nest is also brought by Gemscool to Indonesia, same like AO)

Well I play on the german server niflheim, and i totally agree. Alishan patch just hit us a couple of weeks ago and although i’m just lvl 128, i can’t get a christine, but class A-mercs are cheap as hell (~2kk for heavenly cristal, etc). Also I’m upset, that everyone can level up in a few months to my level now because of the events, tgs, etc. and the people that are playing since a long time don’t have any *chance* to keep up with them, AO turned from a mmo with a great ideas etc(btw. i liked ndoors a lot more than nexon; nexon is all about money(even the events) ) into a gear contest and a little game i shall call *who is the biggest idiot and spends the most money on the item mall* and the only thing you need for that are rich parents and luck… AO has lost it’s qualities and is just turning, like you mentioned from a game where you had to team up to beat guild-dungeons, tbs, etc into a massive online roleplay game…
R.I.P. Ndoors-we miss you

I think you are suffering from mild burnout, common when you reach the top and there is nowhere else to go. :) As always very well written and thought out posts on your website, and I cant even count the number of new players I sent here to check maps and read your newbie guide.

I am one of those whiny people on the forum who claim that you need blessing and wp to have fun in this game. Sure you can play without it, you can also jump from high altitudes and slam your finger in a door repeatedly. What people like you and me forget, who have high plus gear and every merc in our formation is that life for new player is rather harsh still. Sure we will level a new alt without Im with tbs effortlessly, but new players dont know how to exploit the system, how to build proper pve formation and what to invest money in and what not to. (like new players burn 8bil on deco when their mercs are in +0 phoenix/divine makes me cry)

This is why I always advice new players to spend their first 15 dollars on a bless license and their first few billions ingame on endurance rings.

ABout the atlas it has me confused as well. Nexon is a business and a rather smart business too judging from their yearly reports. It has been a loss to atlas for quite some time, and like you also pointed out the main point of atlas is to enhance gear. This will naturally create a downward pressure on demand of atlas and hence reduce sales in IM. You can only get business from a limited number of people who are as rich as they are ignorant and keep buying it to plus gear.

Regarding technical issues Ive grown used to these, in fact if they ever fixed all the spinning cata, garbled message, dissapearing mobs etc etc bugs it would take some of the soul out of AO. ;-)

Finally the big thing, and you put it perfectly. The support. I had a bug with my mail since march and they just ignore it, sending mail every few weeks asking if the problem persists. Now this is not a major issue, not like yours where you actually spent money and being ignored, but the handling of the problem makes me feel like you said Nexon is not a serious business. It creates an uneasiness which is hard to ignore in the long run and it casts an unfortunate shadow over the game.

Anyway thanks for the hard work you put into the site with your interesting commentary on missions as well.

Personally I dont think this game is dying yet, but then I dont have access to Nexons sales figures. No idea where their limit for pain is. All I know is that I dont spend money there anymore either.

I must say that without your great walkthrus I probably wouldn’t still be playing. So your work here has been appreciated. I agree the game is slowly fading away. Many have stopped IMing, the big money players seem to have left. I am waiting for server merges. It is still a viable game with a large variety of things to do and it meets the needs of casual gamers quite well, but for the serious gamers, it seems to have lost it’s shine.

i don’t want to list again all what you are so well said. As always, i enjoy to read your articles because they are not childish as most of the official forum threads.
As many of us, i think the same: this game is dying and nexon milking the last dollars from the player base.
I can only be proud of myself that i’m never IM and never will to. I live without teleport, blessing licence … since the tutorial expired and due to all these great mission how-to, i’m doing very well.
thank Claudia for this great job and hope that you will be still around and this article is not your Goodbye message.

They still milking and they still not stop. Later on AOkorea they add new items to direct level new mercs to your level. They even add Workload license… I hate it. There are too many Item Mall and ‘randomeness’. Getting one Mount Box is already expensive, that’s even only give you small chance to get mount you want…

I remember when level 100 was the cap, and it was damn tough to get to. TBS wasn’t even a dream at that point, nor the money and exp it could net. I recently made a musi to mess around with, and 99 to 100 took less than a day, compare that with the weeks of straight through days I played to get my first char to 100 (I get summers off of work since I work in a school system, and I’ve been known to grind straight through on a game). Really, it’s just the evolution of the game, though, and I don’t begrudge the newer players the ease with which they level and get gold. As the level cap goes up things are added to make lower levels easier to get through. Frankly I’d rather this than the typical Korean grindfest game where you work for hours to eke out that .001%.

The only issue which I think really warrants the attention is the item mall issue. I don’t care if it’s 8 EU or 8 cents, not getting what you paid for is absolutely criminal.

Wonko, I don’t begrudge the newer players the ease to level up either. I pity them. Because if you need only 1 day to level 100 (ok, I need a bit longer, but not much) you have done nothing to be proud of. You storm through a lot of beautifully designed landscapes and settings, most of them you will never visit again, you don’t have memorable fights, problems or experiences… it is a shame, really. I remember quite vividly how I fought with Claudia for days in the graveyard near New Delhi to get the beast trainer. I even repeated the quest to sell the summon orb because money was so scarce. And while it was kind of grindy it was also satisfying because in those days it was meaningful to do it.

Personally I have no problem with it because I *have* experienced it. It is sad that others miss out a lot of the adventure Atlantica Online has to offer.

If its about -took so many time- leveling, i remember Ragnarok Online. Oh god, it takes so long time to just reach level 100. And then you rebirth, play from level 1 (with higher exp to get than first time) to reach level 150.

the game is dead here and there u see ppl come they wouldn last for 2 month once they hit to 120 or even some stop at 65 because of the slow starting they have.
not every one can sit infront the pc for too long geez don’t you ppl work for God sake? how do u even pay for your internet connection? lol oh way and also the atlas..
so when new comer came they blah this and that trying to make a good impression that they have a whole load of gold to spend on game oh wait.. they pop 7 times in 10 minutes grats man then what… nothing change that they have money yet they gave them to vulcanus later on
after that they get bored and activity getting lesser and lesser why?
this game is as claudia say it still have its interesting part but its just a matter of time when new mmorpg take over REAL SOON
im off with this game now shift my money to diablo i rather spend my money on game that not just give good quality but also gives service.
NEXON just as bad as mobster .. when u feel dry and need some money puff new even asking u to IM again
i start atlas ore at 2m then i come back again found out that it become 12 million
wow i miss the 10 million part
now after i came back for 3 month its 17million .. where is the logic of this..
I want Ndoor back at least the speak to us..
forum FM / GM are as lazy as they are.. the read what they like and they delete what they don like as long it doesn’t burn their skin
thats all i wanna say thanks claudia for this page its give me a courage to say shitty thing about nexon

I don’t think AO is dying. AO’s underpopulated, but that doesn’t matter as much if Nexon gears its system to cater to the obsessive Item Mallers, a portion of which I suspect might have real life gambling addiction problems. They will need fresh blood eventually, though, but business for AO must be good if they’re choosing not to promote Atlantica aggressively.

I returned to the game recently after a one- or two-year hiatus, and tried to purchase some NX recently so my friend and I can keep up with the current inflated prices (I left the game with 300m, which was a significant amount of money at the time — now it can barely buy anything). NX’s payment system is horrid. It wouldn’t accept my Paypal, saying I’m from a “high risk” country. It wouldn’t accept my credit card for the same reason. I checked Offgamers to see if they have an AO option, and sure enough, they do — via purchasing Ultimate Game Cards, which has a different set of payment brackets to Nexon’s. I had to make several payments to get the amount I wanted and then redeemed them at Nexon’s payment site, and because of the incompatible fixed amounts, I ended up losing $5 due to my own oversight.

It was such a fussy and roundabout way of paying, that I’m determined never to do it again until Nexon decides my location isn’t full of scamming assholes. Very discouraging, considering this is the international version of Atlantica. I just feel like Nexon isn’t even remotely interested in me as a customer.

Regarding not needing the Item Mall to enjoy the game — this is true, but trying to play the game “purely” as a non IM-er from the start gets to be very intolerable after a while, especially past level 110. Most of your time gets sucked up trying to craft for profit or farming lower level quests for necessities (bless pots, jewels for upgrades, etc) or money-making items. Whatever profit you make ends up being spent on repairs, craft materials, or a few equipment boxes, and then it’s rinse-repeat for the grind. Of course, this isn’t a problem at all if you take the game at a much slower and casual pace, but this is made even harder when you’re surrounded by people who perform better than you in the next dungeon/group/TBS grind.

Just my two cents. Thanks a lot for this post, I agree with most of the things you said.

imho, it’s server nation issue. maybe interAO “smell like death coming” but not at other nation server, yet. creativity of the company that brought game to make new player, low, mid and high level player still playing is different at every nation. AO in every nation will end if developer from korea dying or they don’t pay the cost for new patch

not every game need to survive on international market, asia have a lot of games that never reach international area, so, kAO can be up un running much much more after iAo fill be forgotten. Don’t confuse developers with publishers.

I totally agree to your post and later community posts. It is such a regret, personally, to think that such a great game had fallen into the wrong management hands. I had had issues with other nexon titles in the past and was quite honestly scared to death they would screw my favorite game after the transfer announcement from ndoors. Well, in fact they did.

I was one of those players who would not mind spending a few dollars here and there to somewhat enhance my gaming experience. And I did use IM quite often. At the time (say 2-3 years ago) it wasnt painful because drop rates were a bit higher and it did pay off whatever the amount ppl would eventually burn there. I remember high level players popping up mounts and decos windows all the time. But the game wasn’t yet all about money, atlas or utterly expensive gears (which btw always played their role in high end PVP but wasn’t as nerfed as of what I hear these days).

And gaming experience was really intense. I vividly remember the long days spento to reach lvl 100 and how enthusiastic I was to the lvls to come.

Later on they introduced the TBS missions and dungeons. Hell, it was pretty hard for two or three lvl 120 staffmains to go through some missions….

This, not to step in what was already mentioned: nexon wouldnt take my cc or paupal because I was too high of a risk. Too high of a risk!? Bitch please! ndoors did make a lot of money from my cc before you and for some stupid reason you wont take my payment in “International” AO cuz I’m outside US? you just suck at business management nexon :-)

I’m saying this because I quit the game far roughly 1 year now and I just miss it. Hell, it’s arguably one of the best turn-based mmorpg I’ve ecperienced and it just saddens me to know nexon once again managed to f* another good game by focusing profit above everything else.

I made good friends in AO. Spent some money and long nights grinding thru lvls. It was an unforgetable ecperience, really. and eventually they cashed 50.000 NX in my account as some kind of attractive for me to go back…

Well, dont think so nexon! I did struggle not to leave but even succeeding many GD on my own after u managed to make most of my friends quit I just reached the bottom of it.

I like the game still.
And I don’t understand why you guys are raging that hard…
It took me 8 months to my current lvl (126) and I am not done with this game for long time I guess.
I like the mounts, decos all the IM stuff they provide, even if that is getting more and more over the last months, it’s you who want that new stuff, if nobody buys it they won’t release it.
For me I am happy with my Ancient Fox and Swordmaster’s Wings for quite a long time.
Currently I also play the mentioned League of Legends game, but still AO is interesting for me.
If you all are done with the game then leave a few months like I did, some breaks shouldn’t hurt.
I played another mmorpg for like 2 years after it finally was enough for me.
The problem is when you are at highest tier gaming that you get bored. But that’s natural, I mean you can play custom non-internet games to an end, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be the same with MMORPG’s.

There are some bad design decisions of the developers (like making TBS missions too easy and until recently ignoring multiplayer content). But I think at least three fourth of my complaints are directly or indirectly related to the company. There is no God given law that the Item Mall has to be so expensive, for example. And random boxes are also not predestined.

i agree that with nexon the game is so easy now,which is good for me but their support sucks.I havent played since april and now i tried to enter and it says that my account was compromised and banned for infinity.Few weeks have passed and still no response to any of my tickets.I miss ndoors friendly supports.

1. If new players choose to do so they can experience all of the beautifully designed content that we did, the only difference is that now they can also choose not to do so. There is no law which says that they have to rush through. To argue against that being allowed would be akin to saying we must walk everywhere now even though there are cars because if we drive we will miss the scenery. Yes, we might miss the scenery, but that is our choice, just as it is our choice to take a walk when we feel like looking at nature.

2. Before Nexon took over from Ndoors the most common complaint in the forums was how hard it was to level and make gold. People did things like attempt to organize IM boycotts and such. I fully understand that it is much easier now, but at some point we have to accept that this is what the community asked for. I guess I find it difficult to condemn Nexon for giving the playerbase what they demanded.

As to the IM? Well, that’s a pit of despair. My opinion is that even if it’s legal (which I think is questionable), it is certainly reprehensible that a company is encouraging gambling to a customer base which is made up, in no small part, of children.

To 1: Yes, that is true. I did not argue against it. I only said that is sad if a player uses the shortcut. And I am afraid while they are free not to choose it most will do so, and then they may be not satisfied with the game, leaving it and that is bad for all of us.

To 2: I do not condemn Nexon for giving the playerbase what they demanded. But I think that it is wrong design-wise to give the players what they demand. It is much more important to maintain certain design decisions. In this case it is much more important to let crafting be meaningful than to make gear cheaper. It is like giving your child candy when it cries for it. If you give in anytime, candy becomes meaningless and the damage candy causes (fat belly, ruined teeth) is done. Give your child rarely candy, is the way to do it. It should crave for it and get it sometimes but not very often to avoid its devaluation and the damage it causes.

That said, by no means my opinion claims to be the absolute truth. Other people do and may not agree to my points. I hope they continue to enjoy AO. I am still glad that I left, though. Guild Wars 2 is so much better…

Today is my last day playing Atlantica. I’ve uninstalled it and will never go back. This game definitely have some potential, but there is a huge gap I can not (and will not) get trough – I mean prices. Level 50+ equipment is not available for fixed price! That means you have pay 350 K for fucken helm – one fucken helm! I know what you are thinking – you guys are all high level players and I am a pathetic noob, which can not collect pathetic 350K, but let me remind you, with all due respect, that at that level you get 10-20K reward for a quest. So, how I am supposed to pay 4*350k*9=12,6 mil? Yes, I know how – go and beg for money – guild mates, friends etc. So, because I AM NOT A BEGGAR and there is no way to equip you party without humiliating yourself, I’ve finished with this game.
So, may be one reason why servers populations get down is this game forces player to become beggars and not everybody likes this approach.
Thanks and bye.

There are a lot of reasons to leave Atlantica Online. I did it, too. But your reasoning is rather surprising. I played several alts and especially one, my musician Fritz, I did not sponsor with my main. And it was soooo easy to make money. If I had left then, my reason would have been that it is too easy to make money and that there is not enough challenge left.

A word of warning: I am playing Guild Wars 2 now. Do not buy or play this game, Makumba. If you have money problems in Atlantica Online at level 50, you would have even more problems in Guild Wars 2. Though not with equipment because standard equipment drops there left and right. As it did in Atlantica Online, at least in level 50 areas, by the way…

i also quit the game around january 2013, i played in EU. I can agree with everything you said claudia. it’s a damn shame, so much potential and an unique battlesystem with same very nice ideas. After Atlantica Online i said to myself i would never ever let a game screw me again. This resultet in a very critical view of games and their future development, and i ot to admit, most games really suck after a couple of months. They are cleary not thought through.

*Bumping an old thread*
I was once an AO addict. And I was one of your fans in Youtube. I always watch your videos before I do a TBS which I’m not familiar of. Thanks for all of them. It helped a lot. :) I played AO since 2009. I used to grind all my stamina points Constantine Palace and farm freezing boxes in Frozen Adlivun. I officially stopped playing AO after 5 years due to the same reasons you mentioned. And I’m playing Guild Wars 2 now – and I’m happy I quit AO. AO has become too easy. And no matter how much gold you earn soloing raids and TBSes, it’s just not enough. You level up so fast and having +10 gears won’t do much difference. I quit when I reached 160 (I have stocked exp worth up to 165). The game grew stale. I remember I had to drag 2 of my guildies just to finish the quests in level 120 upgrade – or beating that boss walking near the steps in Constantine Palace. I remember the nation wars, the random bosses in Mob Invasions; the squad raids for empress and druid. And I remember being happy and proud when I loot divine boxes. Now all seem trash – I dismantle everything even judgement gears. I don’t know why you say in one of your comments not to buy GW2. After two years of playing it, I think AO is nowhere near its caliber – in terms of gameplay, content, and even with the cash shop – especially the trade post because nothing there is random – except for the dye pack. :) But to each his own. I’m happy with GW2 and I don’t have plans of going back to AO.

My recommendation not to buy GW2 was exclusively directed at Makumba, as he has problems to make enough money to buy level 50 gear in AO. If that game has not changed drastically, you get thrown with low level gear (up to frozen gear) and don’t have to spend anything for it. So if he has problems gearing up THERE he may not be able to enjoy gearing up HERE (here being GW2).

On second thought I may have been wrong. Gearing up in GW2 in level 50 is so easy, it may even be easier than in AO.

For the record: I still play GW2. If you are playing on an EU server, you can befriend me (Emma Emmsdottir, a guardian, is my current main).

While you may be long gone from this site, I want you to know that this is the site I and everyone in my guild and nation still use to do TBSs. All the time, effort, time, work, time, typing fingers, time that you put into it is still appreciated and your hints and walkthrus & videos are the only way many, including me, are able to actually do tbs’s without stress. So, a big thank you from all of us in AO.
KatzyBaby on Alexandria >^*^<